David Farrell
David Farrell, External Research Assistant, CeRC
I joined CeRC in January 2007 as a Research Assistant (Game/Web Development) for the e-Bug project. I am also just getting started on a PhD in educational games design.
Background
I've worked in commercial web and games development, covering all roles from design through project management, planning, implementation, testing and evaluation. I have also taught games development at Stow College in Glasgow and given guest lectures at Glasgow Caledonian University. As a consultant, I worked on a large number of projects ranging from CMS systems for large universities to bespoke research and analysis tools for research groups working for the Scottish Executive as well as a large number of commercial web design projects. In the games sphere, I was a designer and programmer at Business Playground Ltd, a company which developed business simulations for high schools in Scotland. Prior to that, in 2005, my team won the prestigious Technical Excellence award at Dare to be Digital for the world's first mobile phone / PC cross-platform strategy game.
I received my honours degree in Computer Science from Strathclyde University in 2001 and received a postgraduate diploma in Games Technology from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2005.
Interests
My primary interests lie in the use of games as educational tools, although I am easily distracted by shiny topics and have a soft spot for internet culture, technology and personal freedoms and rights as they relate to society’s technological advancement. At CeRC, I will be applying these interests to health education. In particular the thrust of my PHD will be looking at "Games design techniques as they relate to learning".
I am also interested in (in no particular order):
- the use of educational games for a non-traditional audience using multiplayer games to teach
- game design
- the psychology of games
- communities in MMO games
- expression of self in games
- creativity in games
- e-learning techniques
- emotional engagement in games
- artificial intelligence in games
- biotechnology and the potential to control physiology through technological advancements
- pervasive gaming and alternative reality games
- pervasive technology
- web design and usability
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